Dutuit was born in Marseille as the son of a cotton merchant, but grew up in Rouen, where he studied law and lived most of his life.

He traveled to the Netherlands in 1826 where he visited museums and began collecting prints, six hundred of which he later donated in 1845 to the library of Rouen.

At the end of his life Eugène wanted to make the local Hotel de Bourgtheroulde in Rouen into a museum housing the collection, but this was not finalized before his death there where today a street bears his name.

[1] On the death of his brother Auguste Jean-Baptiste in 1902, who had been living in Rome, their collection of works of art was surprisingly bequeathed to the City of Paris rather than Rouen.

A condition of the bequest is the perpetual care of the grave of Duclos-Dutuit family in Père Lachaise cemetery.